EVIDENCE may have been lost after the States was informed about a security breach on its website. Whistleblower Marcus Cicero (pictured) exposed the vulnerabilities and still faces prosecution in the UK for his actions.

Yesterday evening, data protection commissioner Peter Harris took questions about the issue from deputies after giving a presentation on his annual report.

Home Department member Sam Maindonald said she was initially told that evidence had been entirely preserved.  ‘I was later led to believe that proper procedures had not been followed. There was some concern there was no attempt made entirely to safeguard evidence.’

Mr Harris said that the issue had not been looked into when preparing the commission’s independent report into what had happened. ‘The unit reaction was to close the hole rather than to preserve evidence. It’s a difficult one,’ he added.